Head of Department

Department of Film, Media & Journalism

University of Stirling

Stirling

FK9 4LA
Scotland

UK

Neil Blain joined the University as Head of Department and Chair in Media and Culture early in 2007, having previously helped develop research and create new programmes in media and communication at Glasgow Caledonian University (until 2001) and at the University of the West of Scotland (where he was Chair of Media and Culture and an Associate Dean until 2006).

Professor Blain worked extensively as a broadcasting research consultant in the 1990s, which among other activities included supervising and co-designing large-scale audience research. He is a frequent public platform speaker on a range of media and cultural issues, and has made numerous radio, television and press contributions since the 1980s.

His publications have covered a wide range of topics, often addressing questions of the media and collective identity, in both Europe and Scotland; and include writing on European monarchy, on sport and the media, and on cultural theory and semiotics. These include the co-authored Media, Monarchy and Power (with Hugh O’Donnell) in 2003; and Sport, Media, Culture: Local and Global Dimensions (co-edited with Alina Bernstein in 2003).

A volume of essays on Scottish media themes co-edited with David Hutchison, The Media in Scotland (Edinburgh University Press) was published in 2008. Other recent and forthcoming publications include writing on international monarchy and royalty; on Scottish screen history; and on sport and the media, for various journals and edited book collections in the UK and USA.

Among recent and current professional positions, Professor Blain is a member of the AHRC Peer Review College, and Editor (with Dr Katharine Sarikakis, University of Leeds) of the International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics.  He was a member of the 2008 RAE sub-panel in Communication, Cultural and Media Studies; was on the Scottish Industry Skills Panel from 2002 until 2008; and is now a member of its successor, Skillset's National Board for Scotland.

He has acted in an advisory capacity for funded research projects (for example recently for both AHRC and Joseph Rowntree Foundation awards). He has also had a long involvement in quality assurance and curricular matters in higher education, which has included work for Open University Validation Services, the Hong Kong Council for the Accreditation of Academic and Vocational Qualifications, Skillset, and QAA Scotland.

He has undertaken many validation and examining commitments in British universities and overseas, as well as extensive refereeing for several research councils and many journals. He is currently involved, among other projects, in cultural archive development.